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arXiv:2601.16951 · SciPost Physics

Boundary critical phenomena in the quantum Ashkin-Teller model

Yifan Liu, Natalia Chepiga, Yoshiki Fukusumi, Masaki Oshikawa

cond-mat.str-elhep-thquant-phSubmitted Jan 23, 2026• Announced Jan 26, 2026• 1 citation
v1 · Jan 23, 2026v2 · Mar 13, 2026
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Abstract

We investigate the boundary critical phenomena of the one-dimensional quantum Ashkin-Teller model using boundary conformal field theory and density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) simulations. Based on the $\mathbb{Z}_2$-orbifold of the $c=1$ compactified boson boundary conformal field theory, we construct microscopic lattice boundary terms that renormalize to the stable conformal boundary conditions,, utilizing simple current extensions and the underlying $\mathrm{SU}(2)$ symmetry to explicitly characterize the four-state Potts point. We validate these theoretical identifications via finite-size spectroscopy of the lattice energy spectra, confirming their consistency with $D_4$ symmetry and Kramers-Wannier duality. Finally, we discuss the boundary renormalization group flows among these identified fixed points to propose a global phase diagram for the boundary criticality.

Journal reference
SciPost Phys. 20, 130 (2026)
DOI
10.21468/SciPostPhys.20.5.130
Comments
45 pages, 12 figures, submission to SciPost

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We use a simple real-space renormalization-group approach to investigate the critical behavior of the quantum Ashkin-Teller model, a one-dimensional quantum spin chain possessing a line of criticality along which critical exponents vary continuously. This approach, which is based on exploiting the on-site symmetry of the model, has been shown to be surprisingly accurate for predicting some aspects of the critical behavior of the quantum transverse-field Ising model. Our investigation explores this approach in more generality, in a model in which the critical behavior has a richer structure but which reduces to the simpler Ising case at a special point. We demonstrate that the correlation length critical exponent as predicted from this real-space renormalization-group approach is in broad agreement with the corresponding results from conformal field theory along the line of criticality. Near the Ising special point, the error in the estimated critical exponent from this simple method is comparable to that of numerically intensive simulations based on much more sophisticated methods, although the accuracy decreases away from the decoupled Ising model point.
We numerically obtain the conformal spectrum of several classical spin models on a two-dimensional lattice with open boundaries for every boundary fixed point obtained by the Cardy's derivation [J. L. Cardy, Nucl. Phys. B 324, 581 (1989)]. In order to extract accurate conformal data, we implement the tensor network renormalization algorithm [G. Evenbly and G. Vidal, Phys. Rev. Lett. 115, 180405 (2015)] extended so as to be applicable to a square lattice with open boundaries. We successfully compute the boundary conformal spectrum consistent with the underlying boundary conformal field theories (BCFTs) for the Ising, tricritical Ising, and three-state Potts models on the lattice, which allows us to confirm the validity of the BCFT analyses for the surface critical behaviors of those lattice models.